The present invention relates to valve metals and processes of preparing valve metals of acceptable quality for use in such applications as capacitors and the like.
There is always a desire in the industry to improve on the properties of valve metals, such as tantalum, particularly in the areas of capacitance and DC leakage achieved by valve metals when formed into capacitor anodes. The manner in which the various valve metal properties are improved upon include modifying various steps of the processes involved in making the valve metal, including purifying the valve metal.
There are general processes known to those skilled in the art for preparing valve metals. For instance, tantalum is obtained from ore and subsequently crushed into a powder. The tantalum is then separated from the crushed ore through the use of an acid solution and density separation of the acid solution containing the tantalum from the acid solution containing niobium and other impurities. The acid solution containing the tantalum is then crystallized into a salt and this tantalum containing salt is then reacted with pure sodium in order to reduce the tantalum containing salts to tantalum and to form salts with the non-tantalum containing elements. Water washing is then used to remove the salts and recover the tantalum which is subsequently subjected to one or more acid Teachings to remove chemical impurities. The tantalum is then dried resulting in what is known as a basic lot powder. Typically, this basic lot(s) is subjected to a heat treatment or thermal agglomeration step and then passivated to obtain a powder cake that is subsequently ground up into a powder. A deoxidation step using oxygen getters, such as magnesium, is then performed. After the deoxidation step, the tantalum powder is generally subjected to an acid wash and dried. The powder is then pressed into a pellet and sintered for subsequent processing by capacitor anode manufacturers.
There is an interest by those skilled in the art to nitride valve metals, such as tantalum, with the belief that such nitriding can decrease the DC leakage in capacitor anodes formed from such nitrided tantalum. The current nitriding techniques primarily involve the use of nitrogen containing compounds or nitrogen gas during the deoxidation stage. This method has several disadvantages including the lack of uniform distribution of the nitrogen in the valve metal.
Accordingly, there is a desire to improve on the methods of nitriding valve metals as well as improving on the resulting product.